[vtk-developers] Help with vtkDataSetSurfaceFilter

[Bhanu Hariharan]

Hello,
I was wondering if I can get some help with using vtkDataSetSurfaceFilter
in my code.

I have a large 3D Grid - UnstructuredGrid where each grid block has 8
coordinates/nodes. To improve rendering speed, I want to render only the
grid blocks that lie on the outer surface since inside grid blocks are not
needed in the visualization unless the user slices through the layers.

I think vtkDataSetSurfaceFilter can be used for this purpose.

So this is what I did, I created my vtkUnstructuredGrid, specifying points
and cells. Then I pass the vtkUnstructuredGrid through some filters using
vtkThreshold.
I am specifying the output of that filter to be the input to
vtkDataSetSurfaceFilter like this.

dataSetSurfaceFilter->SetInput( value_threshold_filter->GetOutput());

Using like this, I am not seeing any performance difference. So I dont know
if its even doing anything.

My question is if this is the right way to do it. Can dataSetSurfaceFilter
take vtkTreshold's output as input.
or does it work only with specific inputs like Structured Grids or
Unstructured Grids only. How can I tell anyway.


If someone can suggest a better way to see just surface cells (skin ?)  or
suggest anything wrong with how I am doing,  I will really appreciate it.

Thanks very much.
Bhanu
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